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Having a situation where the US women beat our IM side by over 20 goals is bordering on the ridiculous.

How was this team selected?

Our men's U20 indigenous team would be beating all the IC teams, perhaps getting a contest from PNG, NZ and Ireland (perhaps), so how on Earth did we pick a women's team capable of getting annihilated by over 20 goals by the US women's team?

Even the Italian women's team, newly formed, got within a few goals of the Irish team.

What the hell is going on here? Have we picked a bunch of women that have never touched a ball before?

Some serious questions need to be asked.

It seems to me that we should have gone with a full U20 women's team, or the full NSW or ACT women's team, or something similar. Surely we should have known a bit more of the capability of these teams, and shown them a lot more respect.

I'm starting to think we have got it completely wrong here with our own women's team (and I talk as someone very supportive of the whole IC concept).

To be honest I'm not sure of the Australian IM criteria. I believe the AFL wanted to select a team that would be competitive (which sadly it is not) and which was a mixture of indigenous and multi-cultural. I think a lot of the multi-cultural women are new to the game - maybe they are brand new?

I think when the tournament finishes we'll certainly look, as we have in the past, to review everything and we'll ask the AFL what their intention was and whether they misjudged things.

But let's not stress too much about that aspect. The tournament is about the best international sides coming together to play. It was never meant to measure Australian women's footy, just as the men's tournament does not. Regardless of how Australia IM do it tells us nothing because we already know they are not the All-Australian side. It's really an add on that unfortunately seems to be distracting people from the main event.

I really hope no-one get the impression that indigenous and multicultural women and girls have no talent for football. The truth is very different- there are plenty of girls with talent and experience. Women's football is far easier for foriegn and multicultural girls to get into than for men. And even though the NT Thunder, a mostly indigenous team, didn't perform so well at the women's nationals this year, they would have been competitive had they been part of IC11. However, having never seen women's football overseas, the selection panel excluded state champions. In order to promote the development of football in Sydney and in indigenous communities, the majority of girls were chosen from there, many of whom had limited football experience, with a few SWAFL and VWFL regulars to back them up.

Hey Tobie, we'll probably ask you to do a wrap up after the tournament on what you thought of the standard, but do you have some preliminary thoughts on how the various nations are performing compared with say the Victorian Women's league in which you played this year? How might sides like Ireland and the USA stack up against players from the established Aussie leagues.

I definately think the girls from USA, Ireland and Canada could make a regulars spot in VWFL reserves, which effectively makes them seniors class in any other league. And some girls could probably make seniors in a mid table VWFL team. Even PNG, mostly being Youth Girls age, could go straight into a Melbourne YG team. But the level between top and bottom in VWFL is pretty big- 6 times Premiers Darebin, and the team set to knock them off this year, VU St Albans, can produce scores of over 100 points against bottom teams.

In terms of the Women's Nationals, the USA, Canada and Ireland teams would be a competitive addition to division 2. A world team might even be competitive in division 1, but Victoria is another level beyond that. Big V vs Rest of Australia would be an awesome match but I'd still back Victoria to win.

There are already international players playing in top 4 VWFL Premier division sides and doing extremely well. From what I've seen so far there would be a rather large handful that could easily also make the step. As was already said, better to underestimate the strength of the OzIM side than send an all-star team. Canada v Ireland was a cracker of a game and I think we'll see a few more to come.

From a personal point of view, I'm very happy that the AFL erred on the side of caution and selected an Australian side that wouldn't run away with the cup unchallenged. When it was announced that Australia would be competing, I worried that a strong team would smash each of the 'legitimate' international sides, thus diminishing the experience for them. After all, the girls flying in from Dublin, New York or Vancouver made the commitment to travel prior to knowing that an Aussie team would take part. It would have been easy to select an Aussie team that asserted Australia's dominance of the sport over the foreign women's teams.

At any rate, I think the tournament so far has done a lot to promote the strength and potential of women's footy outside Australia. I hope it will be a catalyst for getting a few Aussie sides to travel and play Canada and the USA at home.

As an aside, the Italian team that took it to Ireland recently didn't have to contend with Ireland's Aussie-based players that are competing in this tournament. So I'm supposing that the standard of that game was considerably lower than what Ireland is showing this week...

I think it's worth pointing out that Jake has been heavily involved in the women's game in Canada, so his comments carry significant weight with me.

We shouldn't be too stressed about Australia IM's performance, other than to conclude that it would be preferable in hindsight if it was stronger and that it should be in future, but it would've been far worse to have these women travel around the world just to get smashed and not be playing to win. It's not the World Cup it's the International Cup. Hopefully this can be a stepping stone towards a World Cup. I'd also love to see a World 18 women's side be invited to tour Australia playing some of the top teams.